


Efficiently and Splendidly

by RembrandtsWife



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Artificial Uterus, Auntie Nat - Freeform, Babies, Clint Barton is a champion knitter, Deliberate Baby Acquisition, Future Fic, I don't think Civil War happens in this universe, Mad Science, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Multi, Nuns, Pregnancy, Private School, cute hats for babies, not exactly canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-05-03 21:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5307482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/pseuds/RembrandtsWife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper Potts always knows what she wants and how to achieve it. Having a child is no exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Old-Fashioned Way

**Author's Note:**

> I have no fracking clue where this came from. I was reading something and then boom! This was not the story I was going to write today, okay? But here it is.

When Pepper Potts decided to have a baby, she did it as she did all things in life: efficiently and splendidly. 

"No," Tony said. "No, no, no. I can't be trusted with a robot, or an AI, let alone a child."

"We're not married, Tony," Pepper reminded him. "This will be *my* child, not yours. Do you want to be the father or not?"

"No," Tony said.

"Yes," Tony said.

"Oh god, yes, YES!" Tony said.

A year went by. Tony told himself that jacking off into a cup while indulging dirty thoughts about Romanov was far less humiliating than... most of his life up to this point.

"I can't, Pep."

"You can't?"

"Literally, actually. Can't."

Tony built another robot, something that might be useful to kids with disabilities. Pepper was disappointed but not discouraged.

"You want me to?" Steve asked.

"Yes."

"And Tony's okay with that?"

"He will be." 

Steve bit his lip. Pepper tried to concentrate on the thinking wrinkle between his eyebrows and not on that full flushed lip caught between his teeth.

"It won't be enhanced. I mean, I can't pass that on."

"I know."

"She might be asthmatic or have a weak heart or--"

"Would you like to have a daughter, Steve?"

Pepper smiled. Steve smiled. 

"Yeah, I would. I'd want to be part of her life, if we. I couldn't just walk away."

"I wouldn't want you to."

"So how would we--"

Pepper laid a hand on his cheek. "Let's do this the old-fashioned way."

Steve was very good with his mouth. And his hands. Fortunately, he had amazing erectile stamina, too. Pepper needed a weekend to recover from her weekend, as her dad used to say. Her legs were a bit wobbly.

"So he did, huh?" Tony looked at the tiny blue stripe on the white stick. "Captain America knocked you up."

"Steve Rogers fathered my child," Pepper said. She turned away before smiling and adding, "The old-fashioned way."

Tony found Pepper's pregnancy more interesting than she did herself. More interesting than robotics, even. He tracked her weight gain and waist size, waved her ultrasounds at Bruce, and mapped every centimeter of her belly with his fingertips, waiting to feel a kick or hear a tell-tale gurgle.

Steve became increasingly solicitous as her term advanced. By the time she reached the third trimester, he seemed willing to carry her anywhere she wanted to go and to wait on her hand and foot. Pepper gave up on wearing heels but continued to work and to work out until her due date was close at hand. 

"I don't suppose you'll be needing any hand-me-downs," Laura Barton wrote, a hand-written note in a box of homemade apple tarts.

"I know some recipes for really good moisturizers, wipe out stretch marks and everything," Natasha told her.

"Better you than me," Maria Hill muttered.

The baby arrived slightly ahead of schedule but not unduly early. "Go wait in the waiting room or buy some cigars to hand out, Steve. Show Tony how it's done. The old-fashioned way." Pepper had chosen Natasha for her birthing coach. Natasha was cool and ruthless, and had a high tolerance for pain.

"I hate this," Steve muttered.

"You and me both." Tony was asked to leave the hospital when he hacked into the security cameras to pick up a live feed of Pepper's labor. 

Pepper sweated, screamed, panted, and ultimately made a good showing for a first-time delivery. Steve and then Tony were invited back once mother and baby had rested, washed, and made themselves presentable.

"I thought Sara Maria," Pepper said. "Sara without the H, but still."

Steve teared up. Tony's mouth worked but nothing came out. Sara Maria Potts was six pounds, three ounces, with wide blue eyes and tiny wisps of red-blonde hair. She wore a fetching sky-blue cap with a red band and a white star on the top that Clint had knitted for her and a lightweight blanket to match. Tony clutched Pepper's free hand. Steve offered the baby his finger and she clutched it firmly.

"My daughter," Pepper said.

"I'm so proud to be her daddy," Steve said.

"Maybe she can call me Pop," Tony suggested.

"My daughter," Pepper repeated, and rolled her eyes at Natasha.

"You did good, Pep," Tony said.

"I always do," Pepper said, and put the baby to her breast.


	2. Technically not a mother superior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Rogers has a daughter. Steve Rogers also has a Bucky. Of course he wants them to meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, it wrote itself a sequel? *flaily hands*
> 
> When I was small, I called my father "daddy Robert". I didn't have two daddies.

"You have a daughter?" said Bucky.

"It's complicated," Steve replied.

Bucky looked at the little blonde girl romping on the playground in a no longer crisp white shirt and a green plaid skirt. Her two pigtails flew as she chased a couple of boys.

"She's the spit of your mother, Stevie. How did that happen?"

"They know what causes that now," Tony Stark said.

Sara Maria Potts went to an excellent private school, co-ed, run by an order of Episcopal nuns. Steve and Bucky both had trouble with the "not-Catholic nun" concept, but the Mother Superior was scary enough to be Catholic anyway.

"I'm not the Mother Superior, Captain Rogers," Mother Cecilia said. "I'm technically the prioress."

"Technically I'm not a captain, either, Mother."

Sara Maria called Steve Rogers "daddy Steve" and Tony Stark "daddy Tony". She called her mother "Mommy," then "Mom", and occasionally "Virginia". When people called her bossy, she replied, "That's because my mom's the boss, and I'm just like her, so don't you forget it!"

She shook Bucky Barnes's hand nicely and said, in good schoolbook Russian, "Auntie Nat said you used to be a soldier for the Soviet Union, but a long time ago, you were a World War Two hero."

Bucky had not spoken any Russian in a couple of years, but he was never going to forget it. "Tell Auntie Nat that I said she's obviously losing her touch and can't keep people's secrets any more."

Bucky needed a job that didn't involve killing people. St. Cyprian's School and Daycare needed someone to supervise its students on the playground after school. Mother Cecilia read the heavily redacted file she'd been given, looked at Bucky, sighed, and shook her head. "As long as nothing the children do triggers flashbacks for you, Mr. Barnes."

"You're more likely to trigger a flashback than the kids are, Mother Superior."

Bucky tolerated standing for long periods, in increasingly cold weather, better than most people did. He learned to tolerate an intelligent child who never tired of talking, and her noisy friends who never tired of playing a mixture of Howling Commandos and Avengers.

"I'm not an Avenger, sweetheart," he told Sara.

"But you were a Howlie," she replied. "That means you were a good guy."

Bucky could have disputed that, but instead he took Sara's small mittened hand and walked her back home to Stark Tower. 

"How did I get mixed up in this?"

"It's bodyguard work, Buck. Who could defend those kids better than you?"

"The kid needs an uncle besides Barton." Tony handed Bucky a martini; Bucky drank it off at one gulp. "Even if Barton's a genius with a pair of knitting needles."

"She loves you, Bucky," Pepper said, putting her hand on his shoulder. "She prays for you every night before she goes to sleep."

"Well Christ knows I need that," Bucky said. "Stark, gimme another martini."


	3. Of course I know where babies come from

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Steve Rogers is Sara's dad, why isn't she super-powered?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm possessed. I must be.

"Mom, who's my biological father?"

"Your what, dear?"

"Well, I thought that was nicer than saying 'sperm donor'."

Pepper looked at her daughter over the top of her glasses. Sara wrinkled her nose.

"I take it we don't have to have the 'where do babies come from' talk."

"Of course I know where babies come from. That's why I'm asking who's my *genetic* dad."

"It's Steve, honey. Finish your oatmeal." Pepper went back to scanning the morning feeds on her tablet.

"What about Tony, then?" Sara scooped up the last of her oatmeal and scraped the bowl loudly with her spoon.

"Tony is your dad because he takes care of you. As is Steve, for that matter."

"But you and Tony aren't married."

"No."

"So he's kind of not legally my daddy. How come?"

Sara's hair had gotten redder as she got older, and her eyes had gone hazel, but that mouth was all Steve's.

"It didn't seem necessary. Would you put my mug in the dishwasher, honey?"

Sara returned to the table and grabbed an orange out of the blue glazed bowl. Steve had made that.

"You're not married to daddy Steve, either."

"No. Your daddy Steve is married to Bucky, after all."

"Was he married to Bucky when he had sex with you?"

Sara was much less impressed by quelling looks than her father. "No. Bucky was still a prisoner of war then."

"So you and Tony aren't married, but you're my parents. And you and Steve aren't married, but he's my parent, too. And he's married to Bucky, and Bucky's my uncle, at least an honorary uncle. Uncle Clint is married to Aunt Laura. What about Auntie Nat?"

"We don't ask Auntie Nat these questions." Pepper snagged a slice of orange. "Not if we know what's good for us."

There followed approximately two minutes of silence. Pepper treasured them in her heart.

"If Steve is my genetic dad, why don't I have super powers?"

"The serum just didn't work that way, sweetheart. We still don't know why." Pepper ruffled her daughter's hair. 

Sara frowned. "I'm not sure I'd want super powers. But I think I want to know why I don't have them."

Thirty years later, Tony Stark was heard to remark, "Well, if I never get a Nobel prize, at least my kid did."

"She's my kid, too, Tony," Steve pointed out. He had showed up carrying his shield. "And she used my cells for her research."

"I told you two from day one that she'd be *my* daughter," Pepper said. She looked down the long banquet table and smiled. "And she is. That's why they're calling it the Erskine-Potts Serum."


	4. Nothing old-fashioned about this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper wants a second child. Tony and Bucky have the technology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise fic! I'm as surprised as anybody. This is neither of the two things I was going to work on today.

"You can't be serious."

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

"But, Steve--"

"I am one hundred percent behind this, Buck."

"But Tony?"

"It's not up to him. I'm Sara's dad, but Pepper's her mother, and Pepper's in charge. Besides, he's got the incubator to worry about."

"Fucking mad science."

"Hey, worked out for you and me, didn't it?" Steve grinned and squeezed Bucky's shoulder. "Come on. When did I not want to spoil your kids?"

Pepper was beautiful, smart, elegant, classy, ten thousand times too good for James Buchanan Barnes, let alone for Bucky, former Winter Soldier. She could also set herself on fire without dying, so there was that.

"We could just put your sperm and my ovum in a petrie dish and hope that things take their course." Pepper smiled and trailed her fingers along Bucky's jaw. "But I'd rather do things the old-fashioned way."

Bucky swallowed hard. "Lady, there is nothing old-fashioned about this." He kissed her fingertips when they brushed across his lips. "At your service, Ms. Potts."

He literally could not remember the last time he'd been to bed with a woman. Luckily, Pepper took charge, and she was just as good at sex as at everything else she did.

"Wow."

"Thanks, James." She pressed a last kiss to his unshaven cheek.

Pepper caught right away. Bucky wasn't sure he'd've survived another night with her. At six weeks, she went into the hospital for a simple procedure that extracted the embryo and its placenta, intact, so it could be transplanted into what Tony insisted on calling the "crockpot". Basically, it was an artificial uterus.

Steve and Bucky went to the hospital with Pepper. Tony seemed mainly interested in the new tech. "Hold my hand, Steve."

"It'll be fine, Buck."

The embryo, the baby, Bucky and Pepper's baby, did turn out to be fine. Baby boy Potts grew at a perfectly normal rate in a perfectly healthy way and was "decanted, like a fine wine," as Tony put it, on what would have been his birthday ex utero, attended by his mother, his father, his father's husband, and his mother's erstwhile boyfriend Tony Stark, co-designer of the artificial uterus.

"God, Buck, he looks just like you."

Lots of babies had cloudy blue eyes at birth, but the fluffy dark hair was all Barnes. He was so small. Bucky couldn't believe he was allowed to hold him. He feared hurting the baby even with his not-metal hand. Pepper, apparently, didn't feel the same way. 

"I'm thinking Alan James," she said, nursing the baby. Bucky didn't feel embarrassed by that, but he didn't want to know about the drugs that stimulated lactation. "If you don't mind."

"If I don't mind? Pepper, I'm--" He was crying. Pepper smiled a Madonna smile and said no more.


End file.
